


the beehive inside my head

by claudia smallman (aleenya)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Poetry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:53:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21953650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aleenya/pseuds/claudia%20smallman
Summary: i live with a beehive inside my head.it's been there since my birth.





	the beehive inside my head

I live with a beehive inside my head.

  
It’s been there since my birth.

  
What started as a pocket of hexagons punctured into my brain grew and grew by the year

  
until it was an empire,

  
a city,

  
brimming with wings.

* * *

I live with a beehive inside my head

  
and I feel its presence by the day.

  
In soft hazy mornings the bees buzz,

  
hum,

  
their wings gentle feathers against my skull.

* * *

They make honey, my bees

  
It oozes down my throat

  
and pools in my stomach where it cements, like concrete.

  
And a few bees follow,

  
down,  
down,  
down -

  
humming,  
humming,  
humming.

  
They bring the sound of summer atop their backs.

  
In the maze of my nervous system, they search

  
endlessly

  
for a golden sweet woven by their hands.

  
And at last when they find it,

  
they lie upon sugar that sticks to their fuzz

  
and sleep

  
and die.

* * *

What started as bees in my head

  
crawling across my brain

  
nestled in gaps, in cracks, in flesh

  
became bees within my blood,

  
within my stomach,

  
within my skin.

  
I try to vomit

  
but all I can taste is nectar

  
wedged between my teeth,

  
clogged deep into my throat.

  
I try to vomit,

  
but all that comes out is honey.

* * *

The bees are my friends

  
and the summer they bring is warm.

  
I tell myself that I can live with bees in my head,

  
in my feet,

  
in my heart.

  
And I can.

  
For the most part.

  
But occasionally they whir to life,

  
stirred by noise, bright lights, a threat I cannot fathom.

  
Their stingers pierce my brain,

  
my bones,

  
my everything.

  
All I can see are yellow-black coats

  
as they storm.

* * *

When the moment is over

  
(a moment, a minute, an hour, I can no longer tell)

  
I breathe and feel buzzing.

  
There is never peace in my head

  
for bees never sleep

  
and so, neither do I,

  
kept awake by their toiling –

  
(shutupshutupshutup)

  
I claw at my ears,

  
but the sound is pounding from within.

  
I can't escape.

* * *

At least some are dead.

  
A bee without a stinger is a bee without organs.

  
I feel them in my stomach.

  
A tangle of bodies,

  
of fading hums,

  
of paper-thin wings falling to dust.

  
I try not to be glad

  
But I am.

* * *

I live with a beehive inside my head.

  
Rows upon rows of dripping hexagons puncture my brain.

  
They work day-in and day-out to keep me safe,

  
spinning silk rivers of sugar until it stuffs my nose

  
and leaks down my throat.

  
I love my bees

  
or at least, I think I do.

  
But sometimes I feel I would relish an emptiness,

  
a silence.

  
Honey never tasted good to me anyway.


End file.
